Machines such as, for example, construction equipment, passenger vehicles, vocational trucks, and other machines known in the art are used for a variety of purposes. Before, during, and after operation of these machines, it may be important to know or predict the performance of the machines and their operators. However, depending on the type of the machine, size of the machine, cost of the machine, and/or the current application and location of the machine, this information may be difficult and expensive to access.
One solution to this problem that has been implemented by machine manufacturers is described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003/0120472 (the '472 publication) by Lind published on Jun. 26, 2003. The '472 publication describes a process for simulating one or more components for a user. The process includes creating an engineering model of a component, receiving from the user selection data for configuring the component, and creating a web-based model of the component based on the selection data and the engineering model. The process further includes providing a simulation of the web-based model in a simulation environment and providing to the user feedback data reflecting characteristics of the web-based model during the simulation.
Although the process of the '472 publication may allow a user to operate the configured component in a simulated environment to predict how the component might function, it does not provide a glimpse of past or current actual component performance or information regarding historical operator control of the component. Without knowing or being able to visualize how the component has been or is currently being used, it may be difficult to analyze past performance of the machine or it's operator, or make improvement recommendations to machine operators.
The system of the present disclosure is directed towards overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.